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Read the first story here, the second story part 1 here, and part 2 here
Shodashi plonked her bags in her hotel room in Uzanbazar and ran out excited. Why had she not thought of this before! She should call maa and let her know. Maa was right. Wasn’t she always! Not always, her sister Shambhavi had retorted once after a sibling quarrel. This time though maa was. Right. Had she not always said, “I don’t plan, if it has to happen, it will, it is all in Her hands, She will call me”. And look how it had all come together so beautifully, unplanned!
And Shambhavi had always questioned maa about this attitude which seemed very fatalistic. “But you need to plan no maa? How will things happen on their own? You only said na adigitae kaani amma kooda annam pettadu ani…”, Shodashi remembered how her mother had always repeated ad nauseam that even a mother will not feed her own baby unless reminded by her child that it is hungry. Not that it was hundred percent true, maa herself never forgot to feed them frankly. But it was a local Telugu saying which meant that purusha prayatna is a must. One must never give up working towards our goals, be it a simple lunch or something bigger like yatra. This is what Shodashi wanted from her mother: to plan a trip, to take charge, to make things right. Now that they could afford it.
So many years maa had no means to pursue her dream of taking darshan at all the shakti peethas, now she could. Both her daughters were earning, they were on their own, it is time that she did what she had always wanted to. But no. Maa was adamant that things should happen to her, automatically, spontaneously! This was ridiculous.
Shodashi’s father was not a traveller, so there would be no initiative for any yatra from his end. Her sister Shambhavi was occupied with her life, work…..so it was up to her Shodashi to plan, motivate, initiate, execute. Unfortunately for her, her mother was not too keen to participate in such shenanigans months before any planned yatra. “If it has to happen, it will”, she continued to infuriate Shodashi no end. It is because of people like me, who take so much pain to make trips happen, that maa can be so callous, Shodashi shook her head exasperatedly recalling the hours spent on online research to make a yatra come to fruition. This was no backpacking in the backwoods. When you take your mother to unknown places; the food, the lodgings, the permissions, all this has to be in place so that there is no inconvenience. But then because maa was kept in the dark of all the trouble Shodashi took to make a trip appear seamless, maa thought everything ought to be left to the higher powers, to make things happen.
Today though, maa was right.
Shodashi had opened her phone to convey to her parents that she had arrived in Guwahati and sent them the location of her hotel, a standard practice since she was always travelling alone. Technology was so useful if used properly. She loved this feature of sending ‘current location’ to anyone in one’s contact list. What would she do without WhatsApp! Her whole whole family had survived Covid 2020 thanks to it. I wonder if the WA founder completed college or was a school drop out …Shodashi always felt that she had wasted precious time in the formal education system. Lost in her thoughts, she started checking out the nearby restaurants and cafes for her after work hang out, when she almost dropped her phone.
The map appeared fuzzy to her failing eyesight, she was not yet a senior, no, yet so much screen time will do it to you. She enlarged the phone screen with her fingers to see where she had been airdropped, hmm seems like the office chose a good safe locality, lots of cafes…nice… ok…she zoomed out a bit to learn the name of the road she was on, the road next to it, just to get her bearings. Shodashi liked to walk around to feel the heart of any city she visited. Whizzing about in cars was not her style. A lot of answers are also provided when one is silent and one asks no questions. Strolling silently on footpaths in a strange city was one of her most favourite activities. This invigorated her. And then:
Jorpukhuri, it said ‘a pair of ponds’…her fingers started dancing animatedly, enlarging the area and peeking into the dim screen with squinched eyes. She really needed glasses, maa was right, yet again.
Twenty years ago when they had visited Guwahati together, maa and Shodashi had stayed in a beautiful Assamese green and white bungalow, latticed eaves and all, in this area called Jorpukhuri. The house was regal with a driveway leading to it, with a small pond and a wrap around verandah completing the picture perfect vision. Shodashi had captured the beauty of this house and the location in her ancient camera, the ones that used a film roll. Unfortunately for her at the Guwahati Railway Station while waiting for their train to Secunderabad, Shodashi, in a last ditch effort to hold onto her memories of this gorgeous land and people, had started clicking in a frenzy.
In no time a dozen or so Army personnel surrounded her and maa, questioning their antecedents, their motives to travel to the north-east, and so on. Yes, two decades ago this city was the hot-bed of insurgency, what with ULFA and what-not posing a threat to civilians and government alike, but what had she or her mother got to do with such extremists? “yahaan photos nahin le sakte madam, camera deejiye”, barked one of the uniformed men. Shambhavi had not come across any such sign saying ‘no photos allowed’, and even if there was one, who in India actually paid heed to such a law, in 2002! They took her beloved camera and pried out the roll and exposed it to sunlight spoiling the negatives forever. It was a trip that she would never forget, for all the negative reasons, that finale was something she had not planned for. And she had blamed her mother for it.
Just before leaving the lovely mansion which was the North East Network office, Anurita their contact at the NEN, had told them to take darshan at the Ugrata shrine which was a stone’s throw away, ‘ask the rickshawallah to take you to the railway station via the temple, don’t forget to go…she is a very powerful devi’, she had called out to them twice as a reminder. And to placate her they both had shouted: “we will, we will”, not once but twice!
In fact the previous evening Anurita had described the two ponds, the ducks that frequented them, the story of the powerful devi who was housed close-by and how the locals revered her. Shodashi felt it was her mother’s duty to pay attention to such topics while she herself walked outside to enjoy the exceptional greenery and quiet that was occasionally interrupted by bird song.
On the day of their departure from Guwahti to Secunderabad, Shodashi’s mother though was worried that they would miss their train. Those were the days without cell phones, without multiple trains from the north east to connect to the rest of the country, and of course those were the days when neither Shodashi nor her mother could afford a change of plans since there was always a cash crunch. So her mother had insisted that they rather sit idly at the railway station than gallivant about town.
Bored stiff having arrived almost an hour early, Shodashi had started clicking photos to pass time. Well, that is when they had struck. How did they know maa, Shodashi asked teary eyed after the platoon of Armymen had just left. And what if we could not prove to them that we were innocent, Shodashi asked again in a choked voice. Well, the defence men were doing their job, and the Ugra devata was doing hers. Her own mother looked shaken after the unexpected scary encounter. Her daughter had almost been summoned to the police station, but for the last minute miracle. Maa had remembered just in time that she carried her military canteen card with her everywhere, which she fished out to prove to the men in uniform that she and her daughter were no militants, that they had indeed come for darshan. The field visits with the NEN to interior parts of Assam were conveniently omitted, of course.
Since the train was late, which was de rigueur in those times, and was now arriving at another platform, they had to rush, manually crossing the train tracks to the other side along with the mobs who were leading the way. Panting and exhausted at the unexpected turn of events they soon forgot what had just transpired and settled down into their berths, happy to be returning home.
Well, ever since Shodashi had had a subconscious desire to go back to Jorpukhuri and take darshan of Ugratara. It was of course her mother again who put this seed in her head, she had insisted time and again; if you say you are going to a temple, you MUST go, else the devi devatas get upset that you have forsaken your promise. Of course, Shodashi had borne the brunt of the divine rebuff all those years ago, because mother and daughter had not kept their word, and they were given a scare too, so now wanted to make it right.
Some day, one day, I want to go back to Guwahati and have darshan of the Ugratara at Jorpukhuri.
Twice after that maa had visited the city by the Brahmaputra, once with Shambhavi her younger daughter who was performing Kuchipudi at the IIT campus, and once with Shodashi who took her on a yatra to Shillong and Agartala, to visit the shakti peethas there. They had a few hours to spare in Guwahati between flights and had planned to visit Jorpukhuri to have darshan, a darshan that had been denied to them due to their own decision of oh! so many years ago. Sadly Assam was flooded. The rains were incessant, the river had risen, the flood waters making their way all over the city, especially Jorpukhuri, which was close to its banks. Their Bodo taxi driver advised them against being foolhardy and wanting darshan at such a time when the weather was so precarious. So that was that. Shodashi’s mother had by now given up wanting to take darshan of Ugratara. “It will happen when she decides to call”, maa sounded extremely confident. Shambhavi, and this time Shodashi too, both groaned in unison.
True to her statement, here it was, in front of her, a red structure which housed Ugratara. Just a two minute walk from her hotel. Of course no one knew of her desire to visit the Ugrata shrine at the office. They were the ones who had booked her flight tickets, planned her stay. She had not told anyone of the 2002 happenings. Then what should she term this as? Serendipity? Luck? Magic? A call from Ugrata herself? Just as maa had predicted? Of course!
Shambhavi stood in front of the temple smiling for a long time, until she heard the temple bells and aarti being performed. Stepping in with a transformed heart she sent her ‘current location’ to her mother with a smiley.
Maa has called me maa!